


Borders

by Ellynne



Series: The First Dark One and the Last [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 20:36:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6093300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellynne/pseuds/Ellynne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Apprentice tries to warn Merlin in time. His guiding spell leads him to someone else instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Borders

It was night when the Apprentice reached the keep.  Its stone wall was too high to climb, though the boy was considering it as he pounded on the thick, oaken door, wondering if anyone would open it.

At last, it was hauled open.  A young woman stood on the other side, looking down on him curiously.  She was dark, darker than Nimue though not as dark as the Master.  Her skin was a rich, reddish brown not quite like anyone’s he had ever seen before.  Her hair was thick and wavy, obsidian black.  She wore work clothes, a brown tunic and a skirt a few shades darker that came midway between her knees and ankles.  They looked new and unworn.  She wore unscuffed boots polished to a mirror-hue.  He couldn’t tell if she were a peasant dressed in her best or a noble dressed for working in her own fields.  A large dog stood beside her.  It was a bit like an Alsatian except he’d never heard of one so big.  Also, it was gray with black spots that seemed to shimmer along its back like shadows when it moved, reminding him of light glittering on a serpent’s scales.  It growled at him, a snake’s tail whipping back and forth.

“Easy, Spot,” the woman said, pulling the dog back.  She gave the Apprentice as odd look, as though she were sure he shouldn’t be there.  “What do you want?” she asked.

“I. . . .” the Apprentice trailed off uncertainly, not sure what he could or couldn’t say to this woman.  “I’m looking for someone,” he said.  “A witch, Nimue.  She was traveling with my master.”

“Your master?”

The Apprentice hesitated.  Was this woman working with Nimue?  She _looked_ safe enough—but that’s what the master had thought about Nimue, hadn’t he?

But, what else could he say that would make her listen?

“His name is Merlin.”

The woman frowned, trying to place the name.  “A wizard, correct?  No, not a wizard.  A guardian.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at the apprentice.  “Did _he_ send you here?”

“No, I—I had a spell.”  He held up his hand, showing her the Middlemist flower. 

The woman’s eyes widened.  “You were trying to find me?”

He shook his head.  “She brought these to our town.  Nimue.  She said they were from her village.  They don’t grow anywhere else.  Or they didn’t.”

“Your master planted them,” the woman said.  She frowned at the flower.  “Come inside and explain.”

“There isn’t time—”

“If there isn’t time, then you should definitely come in.  Now.”

There was no magic behind her order—not the way there’d been with Nimue—but the Apprentice thought she could have put power behind it if she’d wanted.  He wasn’t sure if that should make him less trusting or more, but this was where the spell he’d cast on the flower led him.  He wasn’t sure if there was any place else he could go.  The boy stepped through the gate.  The door crashed shut behind him. 

They were in a garden.  The Apprentice saw carefully tended beds of herbs and vegetables.  There were berry bushes and fruit trees, paper lanterns hanging from their branches.  The woman led him along a small path while asking him questions about the flowers and Nimue.  She frowned as he told her how Nimue had come to their village and about the spells she’d tried to cast.  Spot, like a giant shadow, padded silently behind them.  A giant shadow with teeth, the boy thought.

The path itself seemed to stretch on forever.  He didn’t think he could see the other side of it when they began, yet it seemed to only take a few minutes to get from one side to the other, where they faced another stone wall with another oaken door, identical to the one he’d come in by.

“You mustn’t step through this door,” the woman said.  “That would be bad.  Very bad.  Instead, hold out the flower and summon the one its blood calls to.  I think she’ll come.”

“Who?” the Apprentice said.  He almost asked, _What blood?_ Till he remembered the sight of NImue when she first came trudging up the road.  But, that still didn’t explain what the woman was saying.  “I don’t understand.  It’s Nimue’s flower.”  _I don’t want to summon Nimue._

The woman snorted.  “Hardly.  Flowers like that have been around for ages.  There was one like it where I met my husband.  You think she had anything to do with that?”

“Husband?” the Apprentice said.  “You’re too young to have a husband.”

The woman rolled her eyes.  “You sound like my mother.  And I’m older than I look.  Just call, will you?”  She swung open the door.

For a moment, the boy couldn’t see anything.  The light was dimmer outside.  The shadows almost seemed to move, to be coming towards the door.  Spot growled.  The shadows moved back.  The Apprentice’s eye adjusted to the gloom.

They were up on a hill, looking down at a village the Apprentice would have sworn wasn’t there before—he knew all the villages and towns for miles around, and that one wasn’t there.  “What is that?”

“Middlemist.”

“Middlemist was destroyed.”

“I know.  That’s why it’s on this side of the gate and not the other.”  The Apprentice stared at her.  “Don’t you know what this place is?  This house sits squarely on the Borderland.  That’s another realm out there, one living boys like you don’t want to set foot in, understand?”

“Living. . . .  No, I don’t understand.  Who are you?”

“Oh, didn’t I say?” She pursed her lips.  “Just call me Seffy.  I watch over this Border.  Crossing realms— _real_ realms, not just one world to another, the _real_ ones: life, death; real, unreal—it’s not like walking across a room—” She looked around them.  “—or a garden.  I can take you this far but no farther.  The road outside that door has a toll you don’t want to pay.  Now, call.”

The Apprentice held up the flower.  “Who am I calling?”

“The one who can answer.  Her name was taken from her, but she’ll hear this.  Call.”

The Apprentice held up the flower.  He tried to form an image in his mind, what he wanted, what he needed.  _To stop the darkness,_ he thought.  _The darkness in Nimue.  The darkness she tried to kill me with.  The darkness she wants the Master to help her release.  Whoever you are, if you can help me stop her, come._

_And, if you can’t or if you’re going to help her, stay away.  I don’t need you._

Something came soaring towards them, moon pale.  It soared through the doorway, coming straight at him.  At the last moment, Seffy put her hand out.  The owl landed gently on her arm.

Only, it wasn’t an owl.  It was white bone and scraps of feathers that the light from the lanterns shone through.  It twisted its head like an owl’s, as though its skull were separate from the rest of it.  Its skull was the only part of it that almost looked right.  There were nearly enough feathers across its face to completely hid the bone.  Its long, hooked beak was the ugly yellow of old toenails.  The eyes peering out at him burned like flames.

“Your guide,” Seffy said.  Her dog whined, pressing close against her.  Seffy patted him.  “Don’t worry, Spot.  It’s all right.  I let her in, didn’t I?”  She reached into a pocket and pulled out a half-eaten fruit, a pomegranate, and held it out to the bird.  “Sorry, not doing blood,” she told it.  “This will have to do instead.”

The owl twisted its head before lunging forward with its yellowed beak and spearing some of the fruit.  Then, more.  The red spheres vanished inside its mouth but (the Apprentice watched) they didn’t appear in its skeletal gullet.  He didn’t know where they went.

“Good,” the woman said.  “You can go out, now.  But, you know you’re coming back.  You know what we need to see, don’t you?  Take us there.”

“Us?” the Apprentice asked.  Spot, giving a yip of surprise, seemed to agree.

“Us,” Seffy said.  “If this is what I think it is, most definitely us.  I need to see this through.”  She led them back through the garden.  The Apprentice had always had a good sense of direction—he’d had to, back when he lived on the road—but he had the uneasy feeling  he could never have found his way back to the other side without Seffy’s help.  Direction seemed to be meaningless in this place.

They came to the door the Apprentice came in by—he couldn’t say why he was certain it was the same door—it looked just like the other one and, for all he knew, there might be a thousand just like it—but he _knew_ it was the same one.  Seffy pulled it open and led them out.  Spot glanced back at the door as it slammed shut behind them, whipping his tail out of the way before it closed.  The Apprentice had never seen a dog with a tail like that, as twisting and agile as a snake, but he didn’t ask Seffy about that.  He did glance at the skeleton bird.

“I thought you said things from one realm couldn’t go into another.”

“I said there was a toll living boys wouldn’t want to pay.  She’s neither.  Besides, she’s been here before and left something behind.”  She smiled at the bird still perched on her arm.  “Which is where you’re leading us, isn’t it?  A warning, love, you have only the hours of darkness.  What isn’t taken care of by morning never will be.  Now, off with you.  We’ll follow.”

The bird took silently to the air, a scattering of feathers spreading out from its bone wings.  The Apprentice had no idea how it stayed up.  Seffy followed after it, Spot tagging along at her heels.  The Apprentice, after a moment’s hesitation, followed after.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, I had a different plan for this story, but it never came together. Then, Persephone stepped in and explained that she was part of it. So, here she is.


End file.
